


Second Nature

by Woeful_Reminders



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: F/M, Original Character(s), Sickfic, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 15:13:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15391542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woeful_Reminders/pseuds/Woeful_Reminders
Summary: When Tristan falls ill it's up to Rallia to nurse him back to health.Enjoy darling!





	Second Nature

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cassandraoftroy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandraoftroy/gifts).



Tristan’s life had been full of close calls. His adventures were constantly putting his safety on the line. Not being very wise as he was, it was his second nature and his first instinct to dive headlong into the fray of any mildly threatening situation. This, however, was something he always tried to avoid like the plague; it was the plague.

Every single time he got sick, he swore that he would rather face a Margoth in a sudden death match armed with nothing but his fists rather than deal with this. With hollow, glazed eyes, a splotchy fever flush painted over his cheeks and a mountain of blankets pulled up to his throat, he knew he made up the most cliche image of a sick person possible. It was miserable, but he would use it to his advantage somehow.

That being said, it was an inevitable truth that because he had a rather strong immune system, it had to be an equally powerful virus to take him down. He had exactly no chance of rising from this bed today. His shivering only worsened the ache in his joints and with every breath it felt like there was a rusty nail dragging along the back of his throat that no amount of fluids would dislodge. That wasn’t going to stop his caregiver from trying, though.

“Here you go…” Tristan flinched slightly as the cup accompanying the voice poked at his lips, asking for entrance. “I've brought you some honey lemon tea to help with your throat. You think you can manage it?”

Not bothering to open his eyes, he offered a raspy “mm-hmm” before prying his dry mouth open and drinking some of it. The tea was smooth and warm as it slid down his throat, but he couldn’t help but grimace at the taste. Maybe it was just his clogged sinuses ruining it, but he couldn’t bear too many sips.

“Is that any better, dear?”

“…Yeah.”

Ralia pursed her lips ruefully, seeing through Tristan’s weak lie. “Sorry, I don’t really know how to do this,” she admitted freely as she set the cup on the nearby bedside table. “I’d ask Reginald, but he's just so busy I'd feel bad bothering him.”

“What about mother?”

There was a pause as something passed over the girl's face—puzzlement, maybe, and a small twinge of hurt. Before Tristan could fully register it, it disappeared behind a small, polite smile. “She’s in the middle of meeting with her new neighbors.” She answered at last, her tone revealing nothing as she looked down at her feet.

The functioning part of Tristan’s brain reminded him then that this was Ralia he was talking to. Any small, unassuming thing might be turned the wrong way in her mind and strike a blow to her self-esteem. She must think Tristan would have preferred one of them over her as a caretaker.

“I was just aski-” Stiffening as his chest seized, Tristan had only a moment to haul the blankets over his face before the coughing fit smashed into him like a load of bricks. Over his flurry of wracking wheezes, he could hear Ralia offer words of sympathy. Almost thirty seconds later, he was still hacking and the Druid finally shook her head and peeled some of the blankets back.

“Alright, alright, come on, let’s sit you up here,” she urged, wrapping an arm around Tristan’s back with firm gentleness. Her hand didn’t leave once Tristan was upright, rubbing slow circles into his sweaty pajama shirt as air returned to his lungs in stops and starts. “That’s it, it’s calming down now…In through your nose, out through your mouth. You’ve got it.”

Tristan’s heaving shoulders stilled for only a moment before lurching once, twice more in a distinctively different fashion as his tea surged back up to his throat. “Ral—” he gagged, clapping his hands over his mouth and curling in on himself, shaking his head violently as telltale nausea prickled over his body.

“Oh—” Recoiling, Ralia lunged to her feet and scrambled to the bathroom, looking frantically for the nearest bowl. “Hang on, hang on—!”

It was amazing, with the Druid’s lacking speed and agility, that she managed to find the perfect bowl and thrust it under his chin in time for him to retch into it. The force of his heaving nearly knocked his forehead against the bowl’s rim until Ralia put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” she soothed all the while, shushing Tristan’s pained groans and gags. “It's alright, just get it out. I’m sorry love, I know it hurts…” Pursing his lips, he moved her hand from Tristan’s shoulder to the back of his neck, tsking worriedly. “You’re really warm.”

Sure enough, it took everything in him for Tristan not to lean back into Ralia’s blissfully cool touch. Instead, releasing a slow, shaky exhale, Tristan weakly shifted the bowl to his left, indicating he was finished, at least for now. Ralia hardly batted an eye as she took it back to the bathroom to rinse it out, but when she returned with a damp towel in hand, she noticed how Tristan’s flush deepened. It wasn’t from his fever.

“It helps!” she retorted in answer to the other’s unspoken distaste.

“Come on…” the boy croaked, shoulders slumping in mingling embarrassment and despair.

“Hey, don’t knock it till you try it,” Ralia advised with a pout, easing Tristan’s head back with a hand on his shoulder so he could be in a more comfortable position.

The towel was softer than Tristan expected, or perhaps it was the gentleness of Ralia’s strokes that fooled him into thinking it was. Despite himself, he couldn’t help but sigh in relief as the cloth was patted along his temples, cheekbones, jawline and the curve of his throat.

“There. Isn’t that better?” Ralia questioned rhetorically once she was satisfied, brushing aside stray strands of Tristan’s hair so she could drape the folded towel over his forehead.

“It's like magic…” Tristan agreed hazily, his eyes drifting over to her. “I’m…sorry, Ralia. I was just asking about Reginald and mother because I…didn’t want you to see me like this.”

It took a moment but to his faint surprise, Ralia barked an incredulous laugh. “What, seriously? You think I haven’t seen this before? This is nothing! Try taking care of a five-year-old when they've got the flu. One of the young girls on Neptunia was the most pathetic little picture you could imagine, all bundled up in bed. Every time I thought she was asleep and I’d get up for food or drink, she’d wake right back up and start crying, which only made her nose run everywhere.”

“Poor kid,” Tristan murmured.

“Yeah, it wasn’t pretty.” Ralia’s expression grew wistful then, her attention wandering. “But when she cried, she wanted me to rock her. Walking around her room and rocking her was the only thing that would help.” Chuckling wryly at the memory, she glanced back at Tristan and opened her arms invitingly. “Think that would work?”

“Sounds nice, but I don’t think you could lift me.”

“Oh, you think I can't just because I'm a girl, right?”

Tristan laughed at that, the sound catching in his throat to turn into another dry cough. “Ow, ow—don’t make me laugh, it hurts.” Holding his breath for several seconds to calm down the warning ache in his throat, he settled his head more heavily against the cushions, letting his eyes close. “Sounds like you’re a better caretaker than I figured,” he commented, trying to stay focused on the conversation and not on the headache trying to persist in dragging its fingers along his skull.

“Well, yeah. I don’t usually get to take care of you; you’re always taking care of me,” Ralia pointed out. “You’re always taking care of all of us.”

“S’my job. I worry about you.”

“Well I worry abut you,” Ralia insisted. “Tristan…you know how much you mean to me, right? I wouldn’t get anywhere without you. You know that, right?”

“…Yeah. I think you could do just fine, though. More than fine. You’re…you’re really amazing, Ralia. I couldn’t ask for you to be any better. You make me so proud and I wouldn’t get anywhere without you.” Though his weary tone didn’t change as he said those words, Tristan could feel a slight sting in his chest and behind his eyelids as emotion stirred. He took a lesson from Ralia’s story, however, and pressed it down deep in his stomach before it could clog his sinuses and make the ache in his throat any worse. “For one thing, I’d have puked all over these blankets.”

Silence reined for a few minutes after that remark, until Tristan’s mind was starting to wander into the dim, delirious thoughts that were almost dreams. Eventually Ralia muttered something or another that might have been thanks before rising to her feet. “You’ve gotten really sappy; your fever must be getting to you. I should let you rest.”

“Wait, wait—don’t go—” In his bleary haste, Tristan’s plea sounded much more tragic than it was technically meant to, but it did give Ralia pause. Deciding to roll with it, the boy widened his eyes pitifully. “Reginald and mother always stay with me when I’m sick…”

“Would it make them proud?” Ralia quipped, earning nothing but another longing blink in return. Crossing her arms, she shook her head and relented. “Just let me grab a book real quick. I'm hoping reading will be enough of a distraction to drown you out in case you start snoring.”

Tristan’s next blink was one of confusion. “Wh—I don’t snore!”

“Sure, not usually, but if you’ve crashed hard, you do!” the Druid announced guiltlessly as she turned and marched over to the bookcase.

Digesting this information with a mild scowl, Tristan huffed, coughed a few times and then let his body relax into the cushions, effectively burying himself under the blankets. He had a nagging feeling that he would overheat sometime while he was napping, but at the moment the warmth the blankets provided was pretty comforting. After he had settled into a breathing pattern that wouldn’t stir a coughing fit, he finally felt free to doze off.

When he was still just semiconscious of his surroundings, he heard Ralia return, humming softly a tune he didn't recognize as she settled down in the chair nearby. The sound lulled him all the way down into darkness, and his sleep was peaceful. He didn’t make a sound.


End file.
